Someone Weirder Than Them
by her majesty Maj
Summary: short story about Flock meeting my OC from original story who has a lifestyle similar to theirs in ways. may or may not be one-shot


Max was running down on the ground, looking for the stupid toy. Above her flew the Fang, watching over her like some kind of guardian angel, the type that shops at Hot Topic. The rest of the Flock was waiting in a cave a ways back. Angel was probably still crying.

Yet again Max wondered why she was down here on the ground, looking for a teddy bear. Then she remembered that she loved her Flock, and Angel, and anyway, Angel would be intolerable if she didn't find the bear. Down here in the forest everything was quiet and still as Max ran quickly through, looking around with her raptor vision for a glimpse of golden fur. Exhausted, she stopped in a clearing and signaled Fang. He came down, black wings casting a shadow over her for a minute before he landed.

"So Fang, any ideas about this, besides flying to New York and buying her a new one?" huffed Max, trying to catch her breath.

"Do you want me to take a turn running and looking? The thermals up there are good, you can rest some," offered Fang suddenly, with unusual care. Max looked at him for a second.

'Sure, I guess, if you're offering I'm not going to stop you, go ahead. Ready?" Max answered brusquely.

"Yah, I'm going to find a bear, Max," quipped Fang before starting off running. The smirk on his face had been odd. Shrugging, Max took off and followed him from the air. From up in the sky, the green stretched on in to the horizon for what seemed like forever. And all Angel knew was that she'd dropped Celeste in SOME TREES around here. Luckily impossible tasks were not on the Flock register, because after a while the small black ant-thing on the ground that was Fang signaled Max down. A flash of brown feathers took her into dive, then she landed somehow neatly, with a smug expression, next to Fang.

All he did was hold up a battered, but intact Celeste the angel bear. They both whooped for a second, before remembering someone could be watching.

"Good job. Where was the darned thing?" asked Max.

"Oh, she fell out of your bag a couple of minutes ago," he said, looking even more superior than usual. Max jumped at him, intending to wipe the smug smirk right off his face once and for all. He caught her before she reached him.

The height thing, oh yeah. Max had forgotten she was shorter than Fang now, by a lot. She backed off, hands up in surrender and scowling.

"I'm messing with you. I found the bear in a tree," Fang muttered.

"Five is a nice number. I like the number five, especially for groups and families," said Max, apparently to the air. "A sixth wheel is so sad. Usually you can tell them by their need to be different somehow, like, for instance, dressing all in mismatched black clothes," she went on.

A few hours later Max and Fang arrived at the cave where the rest of the Flock was waiting. No one said anything about their tousled, dirty clothes. Everyone made their own assumptions.

In the morning Max and Fang weren't talking to each other. While this wasn't an uncommon occurrence, it irritated everybody else, especially Angel. She went to Max that morning as they were setting off and tried to talk to her. Over on the other side of the cave, Iggy was performing the same duty. Nudge just sat and listened with great interest to Total talk about lovers' spats.

Flight that day was tense. It was like The Split all over again. You could have flown a 747 between Max and Fang. The kids tried to relieve the heaviness by talking, but they stopped fairly quickly. Even Total and Nudge were quiet. Finally, that evening the Flock landed in a little clearing near a vacation home on a hill, in a valley between some really big mountains. Probably the Rockies. On either side of the tiny, controlled campfire were the two fighting.

Everyone ate a dinner of stolen sausage in silence. Iggy pulled out the computer and started typing something to put on the blog, next time he had time and internet. All this absolutely wild activity came to a standstill when something large moved in the trees near us. The movement was followed by a voice.

"No, I'm not an enemy, just lost. Don't run, please! Do you have food? "a perfectly normal sounding, if desperate, girl's voice said from the bushes. Looking around at the Flock, Max shrugged and folded her wings in. Her family followed in her example.

"Come out! But show your hands please!" responded Max. Another rustle came from the wild shrubbery. Doubting her decision for a second, Max looked at Angel questioningly. Angel had a starined look on her face, then she relaxed, looking confused, and projected a thought into Max's mind, saying _I can't read her thoughts at all. _

Then a very, erm, bright girl stepped out, hands at the level of her neck and open. The Flock was practically blinded by the tall girl's all-purple, multi-shade attire. Frizzy, dark hair went past her waist, where a magnificent golden retriever stood, looking curiously back at the Flock. Total's tail went down, and his teeth were bared for a second. Then a snobbish, English voice coming from the girl's large purple backpack snapped them all back into reality.

"Well, who are you dirty urchins?"


End file.
